Confronted with the Covid-19 Pandemic, ongoing research projects requiring group attendance for experiments were mummified. This affected in particular our project on gamification and decision making under uncertainty in buyer-supplier relations. Questionnaires were ready for interviews and experiments, but….no students, no groups of participants allowed.  Also planned IPSERA workshops were postponed.

So, what did it mean? Just waiting? Biding our time? Instead, the rather unique situation where people had to face the ultimate uncertainty became topic of research. We were able to involve senior managers of 11 hotels to get involved in a 6 month 3 wave panel study. Our main research questions were “What goes on in their minds? Which topics and themes play a role? How do they invoke resilience?” 47 interviews later, we know. Our IPSERA Competitive paper describes the results: “Invoking resilience during the pandemic”. Full paper available, just send an email! And we are still working on this project, expanding the scope of the interviews. The last stage of this temporary project ends on the 1st September, when we plan to revitalise the original project on gamification. An IPSERA workshop on Gamification and decision making under uncertainty, is planned for mid-October 2021: either ’live’, on-line or a mix.

What else did we do in the meantime? We started two new PhD projects: (1) the material and money flows between the components of the tourism filière - starting 1 September 2020 (Alishan Karimov) - and (2) Block chain technology in a sustainable food supply chain, starting right now. Both are supposed to result in IPSERA contributions, of course.

Hence, in spite of the pandemic, we managed to keep our research going, as a sign of proper academic resilience. But of course, we keep our fingers crossed!

Dirk-Jan F. Kamann